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Party Of One

Like most good contemporary guitar-based pop -- and let's not

bicker about definitions of pop here; I'm talking about that peculiar

school of self-consciously labeled music, like the Apples In Stereo,

Stephen Merritt, et al., that somehow is made more respectable by

the admission that, yes, it is in fact pop music -- Isolation

Party, Tommy Keene's new album, plays around with none-too-

subtle influences. As soon as you hear the ripping first chords of

"Long Time Missing," and surrender to its powerful, sweet hook, you

think of Game Theory, you think of Shoes, you think about your own

personal pop saviours, the critical darlings you hold dear to your

heart, knowing that somehow you and you alone understand the

true magnitude of their beauty and purity.

Hey, some people already think of Tommy Keene in those terms.

Most Keene reviewers and interviewers bitch about how in a perfect

world Keene would be a star. I'm going to try not to do that, because

if there is any justice in the world (and, oh god here I go, but you

know there just isn't) Isolation Party will cement his place in

the pantheon. He's spent most of his career on the fringe of the

fringe; after a series of fairly obscure LPs (on Dolphin in 1984, and

then on Geffen for a brief period in the late '80s) Keene moved to

Matador for the releases of a well-received EP and the thick, pretty

Ten Years AfterLP, and toured with Paul Westerberg and the

fuzztoned Velvet Crush.

But back to those influences, those troubling influences that some

would deem "derivative" (as if, somehow, being open to influence

equals unoriginality) -- like many good artists, Keene lightly

camouflages pop structures with images and sounds that reflect a

healthy music collection.

If anything, this Tommy Keene record evinces a real Westerbergian

universe. The presence of part-time Replacements wannabe, full-

time Wilco head Jeff Tweedy, who provides backing vocals on "Never

Really Been Gone" and "The World Outside," shows the clear lineage

of Westerberg to Wilco, with Keene being the missing link. No

wonder Westerberg had Keene play on his last tour; the opening riff

on "Getting Out From Under" is pure (late Replacements guitarist)

Bob Stinson, a low, menacing rumbly guitar that steadies us for the

line, "Don't look down / we're dead in the water / and I know you've

got a lot to say." We're heading into real, serious, depressed,

sensitive-guy pop here, and Keene wants our nerves ready for it.

Isolation Party is an album of grand realizations and

hindsight; the title is telling -- you can see he's spent a lot of time

alone. On "Getting Out From Under," Keene does his Plimsoul best to

recover from a crushed relationship. "Remember when we touched,"

he says, his voice hooked on a rigid chorus, "I thought I saw the

lightning, it meant so much, now it's all through. It's been so hard,

getting out from under you." On the aforementioned "Long Time

Missing," perhaps Keene's most typical power-pop number -- and

that's neither an insult nor a Keene-approved use of the power-pop

label, which he hates, by the way -- you have fuzz and syrup

covering sorrow and momentary epiphanies. "You've been a long time

missing," he sings, probably to and about himself, but there's hope at

the end: "Now the world will listen/ to the long time missing in your

life."

When he sings about this particular "long time missing" in his life,

there's still a willful ambiguity; it could mean the years he spent on

Geffen, plugging away in a vacuum, or it could just as easily refer to

the vast chasm of a tortured relationship, or to the sick emptiness

of unrequited love. And while it's true that the particulars matter,

it's also true that at a certain point they don't. "There was a time

when I felt so jaded/ and very overrated," sings Keene, on "Never

Really Been Gone." "There's a picture I've just begun to see." Lucky for

us, Keene's close-ups turn to wide angle shots that allow us

glimpses of perfect pop pictures of our less than perfect lives.

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